


Breathe Life Upon This Gem

by stellacanta



Series: Love Never Dies [6]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 13:29:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18572458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellacanta/pseuds/stellacanta
Summary: Crowe Week day 2 prompts:Crowe survives the escort mission&redCrowe had a pair of daggers gifted to her by a dragon. “For you,” the dragon had said to her. “For your protection.”She had been young then. Young and under the impression the dragon would always be there to protect her. “Isn’t that what you are for?”The dragon only laughed. “I cannot always be by your side, little blackbird. For that reason I give you these so you may protect yourself while I’m not there.” She clenched the pair of daggers in her hands. (They were beautiful things. Beautiful in spite of the deformed the blade looked, beautiful because of it.) “Just remember, dear one, you are small, but fast. Small things tend to get overlooked, so use it to your advantage.”She had kept those words and the daggers close to her heart. The words to remind herself that she didn’t need size to be dangerous. And the daggers? Well, the daggers were more useful than child her would have thought possible. Once, they had saved her life.





	Breathe Life Upon This Gem

One of her most treasured possessions was a pair of daggers given to her by the dragon that lived in the mountains outside her hometown. The hilts were each lovingly crafted from ivory and metal, precious gems inlaid into the base of the grip and parts of the guard. One dagger held a large garnet in its hilt. The other a large ruby. Both pommels came to a fairly sharp point, one she had learned the hard way when she scratched herself with one and drew a line of blood down her arm.

Sometimes, when she placed the daggers on the table and looked at them in the moonlight? The hilts looked like they were made from the teeth of some large beast. She shuddered as she tried not to think of what mouth would have held such large teeth. 

Where the hilts were works of art in their own right, the blades were seemingly ugly and deformed. They were bumpy and rough, as if someone had tried to chip away at the metal with a stone and given up on trying to make it smooth after hours of effort. Despite their ugly appearance, the blades were wicked sharp and strong besides. Something she had learned when she used it to carve meat off of a dead deer and managed to cut through half of the bonebefore she stopped.

(The dragon had given her an amused snort when she had stopped and looked towards it. “You knew about this didn’t you,” she had said but only got silence in return.)

The dragon had given her many other gifts before he left her, but the daggers were the gift that she treasured beyond all else. (Beyond the dingy red dragon plushie that had began to fall apart a bit in age, beyond the necklace she always wore on her neck proudly.)

Besides, as kingsglaive? Having a pair of daggers that could seemingly cut through just about _anything_ came in handy more than a few times. (She had laughed at Nyx’s look of disgust when she managed to saw through a pair of handcuffs with one. Some joker had thought it would be funny to handcuff her to the truck that morning. She made them eat their words when she walked out of the truck none the worse for wear.)

Crowe wasn’t thinking about the daggers when she was sitting on her bike out in the deserts of Leide outside the walls of Insomnia. It was warm, almost uncomfortably so and she was glad she had chosen to wear something light for the journey. Her bike helmet fell solid and reassuring in her hands, and she set it on the handles of the motorbike for a moment to fell the breeze in her hair. 

It was nice outside of Insomnia, no matter what the city dwellers believed. It was nice to find the wind in your hair and the grass beneath your feet, and to see the sky stretch endlessly above you. Sure, they might not have the countless conveniences of city life, but they had the stars, they had mountains and trees and rivers, and they had each other. (Well, as much as other people could be trusted to be depended on.) She knew she wasn’t the only person who felt like that. Sometimes, she would catch their commander looking outside the window with a wistful look on his face. 

He would always stare north, at something beyond the walls of the city that only he could see. 

Leide was different from Cavaugh, where she had spent her childhood and spent some of her time growing up, and she took a moment to appreciate the scenery. The dusty brown ground and brief tufts of light green grass to poked up from it. Endless rolling hills that weren’t covered in much of anything. A lonely road that cut through all of it. (Rubble from destroyed buildings, an old bus stop that no one came to anymore.) 

She sighed and picked up her helmet again, having taken her fill of the landscape and ready to set off. It would take the better part of the day to get all the way to Galdin Quay, where she was due to meet the princess. (Crowe had wanted to shout at Commander Drautos when she heard about the plan. It seemed fairly half-baked and she wasn’t sure if she should blame the commander for that or someone above him.)

Something in the distance caused her to stop in the process of putting on her helmet and she grinned wryly down the road. It was something like a rumble of engines, and she thought she could make out the shape of a gray van coming towards her. She chuckled her herself. Was she supposed to be expecting company out here?

In her mind she could hear the gravely voice of the dragon, loud as a waterfall and as deep as the ocean, “just remember, dear one, you are small, but fast. Small things tend to get overlooked, so use it to your advantage.”

“Yeah,” she said to herself as she snapped on her helmet, calculating the time it would take for the van to get here. “You never let me forget.” She slid out a throwing knife from a small set of them she always kept strapped to her leg and threw it out at the van as it roared up the road. Not directly towards it, just off the driver’s side, and warped to it right as she could see the windows get rolled down. Their mistake.

After all she was small and fast, and no one expected the small and fast thing to duck so nimbly and strike so surely. The hand not grabbing onto the throwing knife had one the garnet inlaid dagger in it and she twisted it around to stab it down into the driver’s shoulder. They screamed in pain and the van jerked wildly to the side. Quickly, she threw herself on the roof of the van so she wouldn’t get thrown off by its erratic movements. he genius in the passenger seat decided to take a pot shot at her as she yanked the dagger out and the bullet from the gun ricocheted off of the uneven surface of the blade.

Huh, she didn’t know the blade could even _do_ that. Crowe didn’t get the chance to bask in her newfound knowledge when the fucker fired another bullet off at her and this time got her in the arm. She yelped in pain and it was all she could do not to drop the dagger. “Motherfucker,” she hissed to herself as she twisted herself fully on the roof and looked down. The van was speeding up. Oh, they thought they could throw her off huh? Fat chance.

The dagger cut through the steel frame of the car and she dropped in on the driver’s side. She held him in a chokehold until she felt him slump and stabbed his friend in the chest before the guy got any bright ideas. There were voices (two of them) behind her and a couple of bullets came flying through the divider. One got her in the back and the another in the shoulder. Crowe bit off a hiss and throttled the gas petal, steering the van towards a telephone poll just off the side of the road. 

She waited until the last moment before warping herself out of the vehicle. There was a loud crash behind her as she landed roughly onto the ground. Yeah, that was going to bruise tomorrow. Hopefully she wouldn’t have to get a cast like Lib. (Nyx would never let the two of them live it down.) There was noises and what looked like movement from inside the wreckage of the van. Without thinking, she tugged on the crystal’s magic and the van burst into flames. 

Crowe got up with a hiss and limped towards the road. She could see the bike at the old station off in the distance but walking there as going to be a pain. With a sigh she removed her helmet and looked down at the gem on her necklace. What was it the dragon had said when it was given to her?

“Breathe life huh? Well, I still got some left in me I guess.” She blew a warm breath over the gemstone, and she thought she saw it shimmer and glow a bright red. When she looked again, it seemed the same as ever and she wondered exactly what it did. Her answer came in the form of a figure on a motorbike, the helmet on the person’s face making it hard for her to make out features. 

“Oh, little blackbird,” a familiar masculine voice, muffled as it always had been, greeted her as the bike slid to a stop in front of her. “What mess have you gotten yourself into now?”

She gave the figure a shit eating grin. This must be the dragon in the form of a man again, robes traded for something more casual and a helmet. “Just took down a van full of guys trying to kill me.” Crowe gestured towards the burning van behind her. “Doing okay despite it, how about yourself?”

The man gestured towards the back seat of the bike and she hopped on without another word. “I was actually on my way to pick up a guest, it seems she’s getting a little antsy with how long she’s been kept waiting.” A pause. “She’s Galdin Quay, I hope you don’t mind the drive?”

She raised an eyebrow as she affixed her helmet back on her head and got herself settled on the bike. “What a coincidence, I was traveling there myself to pick up the princess.”

“Hmm, what a coincidence indeed.” The man never clarified what he meant and there was a small frown on her face as they sped off towards Gladin.


End file.
